


and left the secret at the grave

by ProbablyVoldemort



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Friends to Lovers, Murder Mystery, Secret Relationship, Snowed In, The murder isn't graphic, most of the fic is post murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-15 12:22:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28938450
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyVoldemort/pseuds/ProbablyVoldemort
Summary: At 8:57 on the morning of December 23rd, eight year old Jordan Green discovered the body of Skybox Inn owner Vera Kane on the floor of the lobby.  His screams woke up the other guests of the inn, as well as the live-in butler.The discovery of the body was followed shortly by two more discoveries.  The first was that the storm the night before had knocked out the phones and the internet, and the second was that the inn was completely snowed in with no hopes of escape anytime soon.Thirteen people trapped in an inn.Uncountable secrets.One murderer.One question.Who killed Vera Kane?
Relationships: Clarke Griffin/John Murphy, Finn Collins/Bree, Finn Collins/Raven Reyes, Josephine Lightbourne/Gabriel Santiago | Xavier, Monty Green/Harper McIntyre, Wells Jaha/Nathan Miller
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14
Collections: Chopped: Holiday Trope Exchange





	and left the secret at the grave

**Author's Note:**

  * For [justbecauseyoubelievesomething](https://archiveofourown.org/users/justbecauseyoubelievesomething/gifts).



> Hey hey hey!
> 
> Sorry this is so late, but it's done! My first time ever writing a murder mystery and I have to say that was a challenge but I think it turned out well!
> 
> Title is from Two Black Cadillacs by Carrie Underwood, but no spoilers on whether the song as a whole fits with the fic.
> 
> This is, of course, a Chopped fic, which means that there are tropes to include! Since it's a murder mystery, though, I've decided to embrace the mystery and have included the tropes in the end notes to avoid spoiling things. I don't know how much the tropes would spoil it, though, but it's still something we're gonna avoid.
> 
> Without further ado, please enjoy!

Everyone who came to Skybox Inn came for their own reasons. Vera Kane kept track of those reasons in her check in book for reasons of her own, mostly including the fact that she was an incredibly nosy person and liked to know everyone’s business.

There were six rooms at Skybox, and Vera spent her afternoons filling them with her guests.

**DECEMBER 22**

**12:46pm**

The first to arrive were the Greens, a family of three. Harper, Monty, and their eight year old son Jordan were stopping at Skybox for the night on her way to Monty’s parents’ for Christmas. Vera gave them room 4, one of two rooms with two beds, and reminded them that dinner was at six.

**1:12pm**

Next to arrive was Finn Collins and Bree Austin. They claimed to be on a romantic getaway, and Vera decided not to mention that the names on the registration were Finn Collins and Roma Peters. They had room 1, the honeymoon suite.

**2:29pm**

Following them was Becca Franko. She didn’t give a reason for her stay, only asked for the wifi password and a room away from the others. She had a ballcap pulled down low over her face, but Vera felt like she recognized her from somewhere. She didn’t pry, even though she didn’t like not knowing her guests’ reasons for being in her inn, and stuck Ms. Franko up in the cozy room 6, up in what used to be the attic before she’d converted her home into the inn.

**3:52pm**

Next were Gabriel and Josephine Santiago. Mrs. Santiago was more than happy to tell Vera everything she wanted to know about their stay. She was doing research for her latest novel.

“What kind of novels do you write?” Vera asked, curious.

Mrs. Santiago smiled at her, a little too widely. “Murder mysteries.”

Mr. Santiago was mostly along for the ride. His wife’s research meant he got to travel, take in local cultures, and, really, he was just happy to not have to spend Christmas with his in-laws. Vera had the couple in room 2 for the night, and they were moving on to another inn for the next night, all the better for Mrs. Santiago’s research on small town inns.

**5:23pm**

The final two rooms were taken by guests who hadn’t made reservations. Vera obviously preferred her guests to make their reservations early, but, as she always said, an empty room didn’t pay the bills.

Room 5, the other room with two beds, was taken by special agents Jaha and Miller.

“What are you investigating?” Vera asked them as she checked them in. “I haven’t heard of any crime in town.”

Agent Jaha shook his head. “We should be a few towns over,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to where his partner was on the phone. “This was the closest place with empty rooms. We’re investigating a jewel heist.” Agent Miller finished his call, and Agent Jaha turned back to Vera. “The suspects are a tall, dark haired man, and a blonde woman. If you see anyone who looks suspicious, let us know.”

**5:48pm**

Room 3, the last room, was filled by a couple who arrived not long before dinner would be ready. They were a tall, dark haired man and a blonde woman, but Vera assumed that was just a coincidence. The description also fit Mr. Collins and Ms. Austin, as well as the Santiagos, and probably a hundred other couples in this town alone.

“What were your names again?” she asked them, glancing up from her book.

“Clarke,” the woman said, seeming distracted as she dug through her purse. The man elbowed her in the arm and she glanced up, eyes wide for a moment. “Um. Diana Clarke. Yeah. And this is my husband, uh, Mike. Mike and Diana Clarke. That’s us.” She laughed, a little too loudly and a little too sharp, her grin a little too wide. She flashed her left hand, the light glinting off the ring on her finger. “Sorry. We’ve only been married for, like, a week. I keep thinking I’m gonna use my maiden name, and keep just blurting out my new last name instead.”

The man, Mr. Clarke, coughed and moved a bit closer to Vera’s desk than his wife, his grin just as strained as hers.

“So,” he said. “About that room…”

Vera debated commenting on how they were clearly lying about something, but dinner was almost ready, so she decided to leave it be.

She held out their key, smiling at her guests. “Room 3,” she told them. “Dinner is in the dining room at six.”

**6:00pm**

Vera had her kitchen staff and Dante Wallace working for her tonight. Mr. Wallace did work around the inn. He also claimed to be in love with Vera, but that was neither here nor there, and, besides, she was far too busy to date. Mr. Wallace lived in one of the spare rooms in the old servant quarters of the house, just in case, but the rest of her staff went home after dinner was cleaned up and breakfast was prepped.

She served dinner at promptly six, and all her guests but four were on time.

If dinner was delayed, then her staff leaving was delayed, which meant Vera would have to pay overtime. And Vera did not like to pay overtime.

All of this was what Diana Clarke was told at the door to her room at exactly 6:02.

“Right,” Mrs. Clarke said, leaning on the frame and pulling the door flush against her side. “But, you see, Mike and I already ate on the way here.”

“I understand,” Vera said, smiling at her guest. “But I serve dinner at six o’clock. It is now after six o’clock, and I still haven’t served dinner.”

Mrs. Clarke sighed, glancing over her shoulder into her room. “But we…” She trailed off, taking in Vera’s no nonsense stance, and sighed again. “I’ll get my husband ready and we’ll be down in a minute.”

She moved down the hall to room 5 and repeated her speech for the agents inside.

**6:09pm**

Dinner was finally served, late, and Vera watched her guests from the head of the table.

Mr. Collins and Ms. Austin seemed to be having a lovely evening, their chairs tucked in close as they fed each other bites of food. Vera didn’t appreciate people rearranging her furniture, or overt public displays of affection.

Neither did Ms. Franko, it seemed, who only looked up from her hunched position over her plate to send the occasional glare down the table at the couple. There was a moment when Mr. Collins seemed to sense her eyes on him, though, and there was a moment when their gazes met and Mr. Collins dropped his fork back onto his plate with a clatter. Ms. Franko returned to hiding her face after a moment, and Mr. Collins returned to his date, though he was a bit more subdued in his returns of her affection. Interesting.

Mr. and Mrs. Clarke rivaled Mr. Collins and Ms. Austin in their, as the kids said, PDA, barely moving their faces far enough away from each other’s to eat. Vera wondered briefly if that had anything to do with the pair of special agents seated on Mrs. Clarke’s other side, but ultimately decided that they were merely caught up in the bliss of being newlyweds. She herself could remember the bubble she’d been in when she’d first married her late husband. How quickly things could change.

Mr. and Mrs. Santiago seemed to be the most eager to interact with the other guests, asking questions and proposing small talk. Mrs. Santiago spent the entire time also scribbling down notes in her notebook, which, if they’d been seated closer to Vera, she might have pointed out was a rather rude thing to do when one was supposed to be eating. Mr. Santiago, while just as invested in conversing with the other guests as his wife, was equally invested in clearing his plate in record time.

Mrs. Green and Mr. Green didn’t seem to be speaking to each other, instead opting to quietly eat their own food and occasionally talk to their son. Jordan was seated across from Agent Miller, and had quite a few questions for him—where he kept his guns, whether he’d killed anyone, the usual. This was between throwing bits of his food on the ground and onto the table. The boy seemed to be a bit of a handful. Vera wasn’t one to judge people, especially parents, but her own children never would have been so misbehaved when they were out for dinner.

Agents Jaha and Miller, amidst fielding questions from the youngest Green, seemed to be subtly talking shop. Their voices were too low for Vera to catch any details, but the pair seemed to be in a hurry to finish their food and return to their room.

**7:27pm**

Vera could hear the telltale sounds of whispered arguing outside the kitchen, so she dropped her dishcloth on a counter and crept to the door. She pushed it open enough so she could see outside, and caught sight of a man and a woman.

It took her a few moments to recognize Ms. Franko, who had her hat in her hand instead of on her head. It took her longer to recognize the man, whose back was to her. At first she thought it might be Mr. Clarke, but then she realized the hair was too long. It was Mr. Collins.

Interesting.

There was a noise upstairs, and both guests turned to look at it before whispering a few more heated things at each other and then disappearing from Vera’s sight.

**9:45pm**

Vera retired to her own room, sighing away the day.

All of her guests were in their rooms. She’d checked on them all to make sure they were good for the night. Her staff had what they needed prepped for the morning, so she’d sent them off to bed as well.

Tomorrow, she’d spend the morning checking her guests out of the inn. Then it would be a quick turn around of rooms before her next guests began arriving.

It was an exhausting business, but she loved it. If her son had his way, she’d be retired and living in a home somewhere, but that wasn’t how she wanted to spend her years. Skybox Inn was her home, and she’d be here until the day she died.

**DECEMBER 23**

**2:14am**

Vera couldn’t sleep, so she moved through the house towards the kitchen to fetch herself a warm glass of milk.

Three minutes later, her body lay in the entrance way, her heart no longer beating.

**8:57am**

Jordan was hungry, but his parents were still sleeping. He had already lay in bed for a few minutes, trying to find a solution to his problem, before he ultimately decided to head downstairs to see what he could find to eat.

He liked this place. It was decorated for Christmas, with branches twisting around the staircase and snowflakes and Santa Claus and snowmen all over the walls and floors. He’d already found five different Christmas trees since he’d been here, and he was pretty sure he could find more if he tried really hard.

Someone had spilled some red juice on the stairs, so he watched his feet as he hopped over it so he wouldn’t get his socks wet.

There was more juice, lots of it, by the bottom of the stairs, so he looked up to try to find the best way around it.

And then he screamed.

**9:00am**

Agent Wells Jaha was the first to reach Jordan. He was also the first to slip in the blood of Vera Kane and fall face first onto the floor of the lobby. He was also the only one to do that, but that was beside the point.

Harper Green reached her son next, gaping at the body and tugging her son against her, pressing his face against her stomach and shielding his eyes. Monty crashed into her a moment later, muttering _holy shit, holy shit_ under his breath.

The rest of the Skybox guests piled out of their rooms to stare at the body. Most stayed up on the landing or on the stairs looking down, staring and gasping and whispering to themselves.

Agent Nathan Miller was the last to emerge, tugging on a shirt, and stared for a moment before directing everyone back to their rooms.

“No,” Harper said, shaking her head as she sidestepped the blood and the body, pulling her son with her. “No way. We’re leaving.”

She made it to the door, pulling it open to reveal a wall of snow. Jordan might have been able to crawl through the space left between the top of the snow and the top of the doorjamb, but no one else would.

They were trapped.

**9:15am**

Harper dug her hands into her hair, pacing her room. She could hear the shower running in the attached bathroom, and resisted the urge to go in there.

“Harp, calm down.”

She rounded on Monty, who was sitting on the bed he’d slept in the night before.

“Calm down?” she asked him, trying hard to keep her voice low so Jordan wouldn’t hear. “ _Calm down_ , Monty? Our son just found a _dead body_ and we are trapped inside a fucking inn. We have no service, no wifi, no _nothing_. And you want me to _calm down_?”

Monty sighed and dragged a hand over his face. “Of course I’m freaking out, too,” he whispered back. “There’s a dead body downstairs and we’re stuck in here with a murderer. But our son just found a dead body and I feel like it’s more important for us to not freak out so we can form a united front to deal with that.”

Harper growled, spinning away from him and pacing the room again. “Right,” she agreed. “Obviously. But once Jordan comes out, we can’t freak out anymore, so please let me continue to freak out in peace.”

She heard him sigh behind her, but whatever retort he had was interrupted by a knocking on the door.

Harper froze, and she heard Monty stand up behind her. She moved and grabbed the lamp from a side table, pulling the cord from the wall as another, more frantic knock came.

Monty moved with her towards the door, the other bedside lamp in hand, and he held the knob as she brandished her own lamp. They nodded at each other, and then Harper was rushing forward with a scream—

—stopping as soon as she realized who had been knocking.

“Agent Jaha,” she greeted, lowering the lamp. Her grip was still tight around it, though, and Monty moved into the doorway beside her.

“You can call me Wells,” Agent Jaha said, nodding at them. He looked freshly showered, his hair still damp. “We’re asking everyone to stay in their rooms for the time being. Miller and I are investigating, and we’ll let you know when we need to interview you.”

Harper nodded. “Okay,” she said, swallowing. “What’s happening with the, uh, her? Are we just…leaving, uh, it there?”

Wells shook his head, sighing. “We’ve contacted some of our colleagues,” he said. “We’re waiting to hear back. Hopefully they’ll be able to dig us out today. If not, we’ll figure out what to do with, uh, Mrs. Kane.”

Harper swallowed again. “Okay,” she repeated.

Wells nodded, shifting. “How is Jordan doing?” he asked, and Harper shrugged.

“He wanted a shower,” she said, gesturing into the room behind her. “He hasn’t said anything yet.”

Wells nodded again, and then bid them goodbye, heading down the hall to the next room.

Harper closed the door behind him, and then turned back to the room, holding the lamp over her shoulder as she started pacing again.

“When they dig us out, we’re going home,” she told Monty. “If I have to deal with a murder and your mother in the same week, this won’t be the only murder we’ll be dealing with.”

Monty dropped his lamp onto the bed and opened his mouth, probably to argue for still going to his parents’ for Christmas, but then the shower turned off and they were hurrying over to wait outside the door for their son to emerge.

He was wrapped in a towel when he did, his wet hair falling into his eyes.

“Hey, sweetie,” Harper cooed, hoping the smile she forced onto her face wasn’t too terrifying. “How are you doing?”

Jordan blinked at her, pulling the blanket tighter. “I’m hungry,” he said. “Do you think they make pancakes here?”

“I’m sure we can find some pancakes,” Monty said slowly, sharing a look with Harper. “How else are you feeling?”

“I’m just feeling pancakes.” Jordan shrugged, glancing between them. “Why does Mommy have a lamp?”

**10:23am**

“This is bad,” Clarke whispered, tugging at the ring that was stuck on her finger as she paced their room. “This is really, really bad, Murphy.”

“I know it’s bad,” Murphy snapped, digging a hand into his hair. “Obviously it’s really bad.”

“I have a fucking stolen multi million dollar ring stuck on my fucking finger,” Clarke whispered, throwing her arm wide, like maybe he might have forgotten everything bad about their situation. “We are trapped in a building with a fuck ton of loot, a couple of literal fucking cops, who are investigating our fucking heist, and a fucking dead body.” She waved her arms around some more, as if she was punctuating her statements. “We have fake fucking names! And not even good ones!”

“And whose fucking fault is that?” he snapped, sitting up on their bed. “Which one of us just blurted out her first name like some rookie?”

Clarke scowled at him and then resumed her pacing and her tugging at the stolen ring. “Just let me think.”

Murphy groaned and fell back on the bed.

Like Clarke had said, this was bad. He should have just run out the night before, no matter what she’d said, no matter if he’d had to leave her behind. After dinner, where they’d been forced to make out with each other to keep the special agents from looking at them too closely—like any part of him had actually wanted to do anything like that with her after what she’d done to his heart a few months back—and after they’d gotten back to their room with their one bed and their duffle bags full of stolen jewels, he’d suggested it.

They should have run. It would’ve looked sketchy as hell, yes, but they wouldn’t be trapped in here now. He hadn’t left Clarke behind, and they’d stayed the night, awkwardly lying at opposite ends of their bed, and now there was a dead body and they were trapped. Someone was probably going to search their room at some point, and they were going to discover the jewels and the fact that their IDs didn’t match the names in the check in book.

The fact that the internet and phones were down was both a blessing and a curse. A blessing in that there was no easy way for the agents to run their faces against the surveillance at the jewelry store, and a curse in that they had no way to call in backup.

Everything was going to go to shit if they didn’t do something.

Someone knocked on the door, and Murphy sat up, sharing a wide eyed look with Clarke for a moment. He wished they’d brought some sort of weapon, but that wasn’t their style.

Clarke moved to open the door, and Murphy couldn’t breathe.

“Agent Miller,” she said, and he could see her forcing a grin. He stood up from the bed, moving to open the window. It’d be a jump, and there was a high chance they’d, like, drown in the snow or something, but it was an exit if they needed one. “What can I do for you?”

“We’ve gotten word that we won’t be getting out of here until tomorrow at the earliest,” he could hear the agent say as he quietly undid the latch on the window. “We’ve blocked off the main stairs and the lobby, but the service stairs are available. I think some of the guests have already headed down to the kitchen for food. Jaha and I will be bringing you all in to be interviewed over the next few hours to see if we can get to the bottom of what happened, so we’ll be needing to see you and Mike at some point.”

Murphy tuned out the rest of what Agent Miller was saying after that, closing the latch on the window and jumping back onto the bed. It sounded like they were safe, for now. Or, rather, as safe as they could be while trapped in an inn with a murderer.

“Sounds great,” he heard Clarke say a few moments later. “Let me know when you need me.”

The door closed, and Clarke pressed her back against it, staring at Murphy with wide eyes.

“What?” he asked, and she grinned at him.

“All our problems have been solved,” she said, and Murphy frowned at her. “Come here.”

He considered retorting with something petty and mean, which she would completely deserve, but the stakes were higher than getting back at her for breaking his heart right now, so he stood and moved to the door.

She cracked it open, and they stared down the hall to where another couple were talking to one of the agents. He vaguely recognized them from the night before, a dark haired man and a blonde woman, but he and Clarke had been too busy making out to avoid catching the attention to have registered their names.

“Who do they look like?” Clarke whispered, and Murphy squinted at them. If he was looking at them on grainy security footage, they could have almost been…

“Us,” he whispered back, then pulled away to grin at her. “This solves everything.”

**10:42am**

Josephine Santiago sat in a chair in Agents Wells Jaha and Nathan Miller’s bedroom. They were standing in front of her, arms crossed over their chests.

“I have an alibi,” she told them, leaning back in her chair. “My husband can assure you that I never left our bed. I have no reason to have wanted to kill Vera Kane.” She crossed her arms over her chest and glanced between the agents, raising her brows. “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, I’d like to offer my services.”

Jaha raised a brow in return and shared a look with Miller. “Your services?” he repeated, turning back to Josie. “What, exactly, are your services?”

Josie smiled at them. “Have you heard of J. A. Lightbourne Mysteries?” Miller gasped, and Josie let her smile grow as she turned her attention to him, knowing she had him right where she wanted him. “That’s my pen name.” She turned back to Jaha, nodding at his radio. “Ask your people to look me up if you don’t believe me.”

Jaha didn’t move to grab his radio, which Josie could have predicted. “Tell me why this matters.”

Alright. He was going to be a harder sell. But she’d worked with harder sells.

“I can help with your investigation,” she told him, crossing her legs primly. “I’ve written seventeen murder mystery novels. I know how these things work. Gets you another perspective, and gets me some real life experience for my next novel.”

“No.” Jaha shook his head. “Absolutely not. We’re not doing this.”

“Why not?” Miller asked, turning to his partner, and Josie knew she’d made the right call with him. “That would be so cool. It’d be like on Castle.”

“It’d be exactly like on Castle,” Josie agreed, and Jaha shot her a look.

“It’s not happening,” he insisted, and adjusted his position, narrowing his eyes at Josie. “Now, we’re going to ask you some questions, and I need you to be completely honest in answering them.”

Josie leaned forward, resting her hands on her knees, smiling pleasantly. “You two are sleeping together.”

The agents froze, staring at her.

“What?” Jaha asked after a minute, shaking his head. Miller started laughing like Josie had said the funniest thing he’d ever heard. “No, we’re not. Why would you—why would you say that?”

Josie relaxed again, smiling smugly at them. “One of the beds is still perfectly made, while the other is a mess,” she started, and watched the agents glance around. “Could be that one of you is just tidier than the other, except the bedding on that one”—she nodded at the messy bed—“has clearly been used by two people. Why else would the edges be pushed down while the middle is still up? I’ve counted sixteen other signs telling me you’re together, too, but I’ll let you guess what those are.” She crossed her arms. “Judging by the fact that you took a two bed room when there were one bed rooms available, I’m guessing that your superiors wouldn’t be fond of two agents sleeping together without reporting it to HR first. I’d hate for you to get in trouble.”

The men stared at her for a minute, and then Miller laughed, starting to clap his hands.

“That was great,” he said. “We’re definitely going to need to make the bed before the next interview, but that was great.”

Jaha seemed less amused. “So you’re blackmailing us into letting you watch our investigation?” he surmised, and Josie only shrugged. He sighed. “Fine. But if you get in the way, you’re out. Got it?”

Josie smiled at him. “I won’t say a word.”

**10:58am**

Bree turned off her blow drier and heard the knocking on the door to her and Finn’s room.

“One second!” she called, and touched up her makeup before heading to the door.

It was one of the other guests, what was her name?

“Bree, right?” the other woman said. “I’m Diana. Some of the other guests have already head to the kitchen for breakfast, and I’m getting hungry, but my husband says he needs to shower first and I’d feel so much safer going down with someone else. Would you want to go?”

Bree glanced back at her empty room. Finn had already gone for breakfast while she’d been in the shower herself, and there was a murderer on the loose. She definitely agreed with Diana that she’d feel better leaving her room if she wasn’t alone. Less likely to get murdered and all that.

Unless Diana was the murderer, but it would have been a lot easier for Diana to just, like, come into her room and murder her there than to try to take her to a second location. Or was that what Diana wanted her to think?

No. She was overthinking it.

“Sounds good,” she said, and Diana nodded, smiling tightly at her.

“Great,” she said. “I’ll just go back and let my husband know we’re going.”

Bree ducked back into her room to pull on her shoes, and then stepped out into the hallway. Diana was down the hall at her own door, gesturing as she talked with her husband.

They turned toward her, and Diana’s husband (what was his name? Mark? Mike? Matt?) gave her a little wave, so Bree gave one in return.

Why had she agreed to come here with Finn? Why was this their winter destination? They could have been skiing. They could have been on a tropical beach somewhere. They could have been literally anywhere else besides this stupid inn with a stupid dead body and a stupid fucking murderer on the loose.

But she wasn’t freaking out.

“Ready to go?”

She blinked, realizing she must have zoned out because Diana was right in front of her now.

“Yeah.”

Bree tried not to look at the stairs as they walked past. Someone had moved a large dresser in front of them, and pinned a sheet to the roof to block off the view from the balcony.

She really hoped that they wouldn’t be stuck in here too long. She’d heard dead bodies started to smell eventually. She needed to be out of here before that happened.

She followed Diana into the service stairs, which were tight and dark and kind of terrifying, and, yeah, Bree was pretty happy she hadn’t come down here alone.

“This is kinda creepy,” Diana whispered.

“Why are you whispering?” Bree whispered back, and Diana just shrugged in front of her and continued down the creepy stairs.

And then Diana screamed.

And then Bree screamed because Diana was screaming.

“What is it?” she asked, her voice rising as she debating staying to give Diana backup—aka the literal definition of being her walking-to-the-kitchen partner—or running away and locking herself back in her room—aka the literal definition of how-to-not-get-murdered-in-an-inn-where-someone’s-already-been-murdered.

She glanced around Diana’s shoulder, deciding that she’d let her instincts take over as soon as she knew what was happening.

She was met with the most terrifying man she’d ever encountered in a dark and terrifying staircase. He was tall and thin and so pale he looked like a ghost.

And maybe he was a ghost.

Wouldn’t be the most terrifying thing to happen in this fucking inn.

“Who the fuck are you?” Bree asked, grabbing Diana’s arm and tugging her back against her. If they needed to, they could run. Diana seemed spry. She could kick the creepy ghost man in the balls and they could run.

“I’m Dante,” the man said, and his voice was fucking creepy too. And his name. Who names their kid Dante? “I do the handywork around the inn.”

“Great,” Diana said, her voice strained. “We’re just going down to breakfast. Can we, you know, get past?”

Dante grumbled something that Bree couldn’t understand, and then backed down the rest of the stairs. Bree let Diana tug her down after him.

They waited at the bottom of the stairs and watched Dante head up them.

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Bree muttered, and Diana laughed nervously. “If he didn’t murder her, we all just collectively hallucinated the dead body.”

Diana shook her head. “Vera told me he was in love with her,” she said, and Bree snapped her head around to look at her.

_“What?”_

**11:11am**

Gabriel moved around the stove, piling pancakes on a plate. The Greens had already eaten, but Harper was still in the kitchen. Jordan had requested that just his dad join him when they left with the agents for questioning, which, even though she’d insisted to her husband was fine, was almost definitely the reason Harper was working through her fifth plate of pancakes.

So Gabriel was still making pancakes.

Not exactly the elaborate breakfasts he usually made for himself and Josie, but when an eight year old who’d recently discovered a dead body had a request, you filled that request. And, when that eight year old’s mom was stress eating pancakes to distract herself from the fact that her son had found a dead body, you kept making them.

It was the least he could do, really.

Josie and the agents had stopped for some pancakes of their own before they’d left with Jordan and Monty, and Becca had joined not long ago and was already working through her second plate. Gabriel himself had eaten his own fair share as well.

The door banged open, and two of the other guests stumbled in.

“Pretty sure Dante’s the murderer,” Bree announced, dropping into a seat at the island. “Diana has the scoop, and he’s creepy as fuck.”

Hmm. Interesting.

He made a mental note to mention that to Josie. They’d already hashed out the merits of who could possibly be a murderer since the night before, for purely research purposes, of course, but Dante wasn’t someone they’d met yet, so they didn’t have an opinion on them.

He listened to Diana give her take on why Dante clearly murdered Vera—crime of passion. A little cliché, but workable—and dished up the rest of his pancakes. Finn had been here earlier but had disappeared around the same time Becca arrived. He hadn’t eaten anything yet, though, so Gabriel was expecting him to return and he’d made enough pancakes for him as well as Mike Clarke. He’d made a lot, but he could always make more to take to Josie and the agents if he needed to. Judging by the fact that Mike and Diana had eaten each other’s faces more than their actual dinner last night, though, they’d probably be pretty hungry.

He joined the group of women with his own plate of pancakes, listening as they debated whether Diana’s theory was right or not.

“It’s kind of romantic though, isn’t it?” Bree asked, waving her fork. “Having someone who loved you enough to murder for you?”

“He didn’t murder _for_ her, though,” Gabriel pointed out. “If he was the murderer, then he murdered _her_.” He shook his head, shoving a forkful of pancakes into his mouth. “I’m all for murder being a love thing, but not if you kill the person you’re in love with.”

“Semantics.” Bree shrugged, and Gabriel made a note to relay this conversation to Josie. Could be something interesting to explore in one of her books.

Mike entered after not long, giving Diana a very unsubtle wink and telling her that he’d, quote, hidden all their porn before anyone could snoop in their room.

“He’s kidding,” Diana assured everyone, smacking her husband in the arm as he climbed onto a spare stool and started piling a plate with pancakes. “Obviously he’s kidding.”

There was something about the way Diana visibly relaxed when Mike told her he’d hidden their porn that made Gabriel wonder if he really _was_ kidding. The porn itself was almost definitely a lie, but they were definitely hiding something.

Another thing to add to his mental list of things to tell Josie when they were alone next.

The other door, the one that led into the rest of the house rather than the servants’ quarters, creaked open a few minutes later, and Gabriel glanced up, offering Finn a wave.

“Hey, Finn,” he called, his lip twitching as he noticed Becca tense up next to him. “Made more pancakes if you want some.”

Finn tensed at the same time as Becca did, but Bree had already turned around and waved him over before he could make any excuses to leave.

Gabriel made sure his mouth was always full of pancakes so he wouldn’t spoil the show. It was enough watching the way Becca stared down Finn, none of the half-assed peeks she’d been doing over dinner last night. It was full on, face forward, intense, judgemental staring.

Finn, for his part, was doing everything he could to avoid her stare, and Bree was completely oblivious, filling her boyfriend in on their whole _the butler did it_ theory.

Last night, he’d distracted Vera while Josie had taken pictures of the pages of the check in book. Something about secrets and authenticity or whatever.

Bree hadn’t been Finn’s choice guest when he’d made the reservation two weeks earlier. Some girl named Roma had been. With the glares Becca had been sending Finn the night before, they’d been willing to bet that Becca wasn’t her real name.

“I feel like I know you from somewhere,” Bree said, nodding at Becca. Gabriel made himself shove another fork of pancakes into his mouth to keep himself from interjecting.

“I was thinking that, too,” Diana agreed. “Something about your face just makes me think I’ve seen it before.”

Harper and Mike voiced their agreement as well, and then the kitchen erupted into chaos as everyone tried to guess where they might have seen Becca before. Becca, for her part, only denied each guess, keeping her level stare on Finn the whole time.

“Oh!” Diana finally said, clapping her hands. “I got it! You look like that girl from that sci-fi movie, _Spacewalker_!”

“Raven Reyes,” Becca said, her gaze still not leaving Finn. “That would be me.”

There were shocked gasps and murmurings of how much they loved Raven and her work, but Gabriel’s attention was still on Raven and Finn, who had paled considerably since he’d entered the room and who hadn’t even touched his pancakes.

“Why are you here under a fake name?” Mike asked, maybe a little too eagerly, and Diana elbowed him. “Ow! There are definitely perfectly legal reasons for people to use fake names. I’m not saying anything illegal is going on here. Except, you know, murder.”

Gabriel made a note to mention to Josie that they should look into _that_ too.

“Huh,” Raven said, folding her hands under her chin, her elbows resting on the counter. “Great question, Mike. Would you like to take that one, Finn, or should I?”

Gabriel shoved some more pancakes into his mouth to keep himself from grinning. Josie was going to be _pissed_ that she missed this.

Bree frowned, turning to her boyfriend. “Why would Finn know?” she asked.

Finn paled even more, dragging a hand over his face. “Raven…”

“Don’t _Raven_ me,” she snapped, pushing back from the counter. She picked up her purse from the floor, which Gabriel had thought was a strange thing to bring to a free breakfast in a kitchen but which he now realized was perfectly planned. Raven reached inside pulling out a stack of papers and slammed them down on the table in front of Finn. “I want a divorce.”

And then Raven was leaving the room in a glorious exit.

And Gabriel took another bite of his pancakes, basking in the chaos left in her wake.

**11:27am**

“Please state your name for the record.”

“Raven Reyes,” Raven said, glancing between the people in the room. Both agents had their brows raised, but Josie only continued to scribble in her notebook. “It says Becca Franko in the inn records, though.”

“Raven Reyes,” Agent Miller repeated, slowly. “Like the actress?”

“Yeah,” Raven said, and sighed. “Exactly.”

Agent Jaha crossed his arms over his chest. “What’s a Hollywood actress doing in a back country inn under a fake name?” he wondered.

Raven shrugged, leaning back in her chair. “Josie already knows,” she said, nodding at the other woman. The agents glanced at her for a moment.

“Gabriel and I ran into her and Finn fighting last night,” Josie said, pausing her scribbling. “And we’re nosy.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?” Jaha wanted to know, and Josie shrugged.

“Someone was murdered since then,” she pointed out. “It just slipped my mind.”

There was something about Josie’s tone that made Raven doubt that. She assumed that Josie’s reasons for not mentioning it were along the lines of what her husband’s had been in the kitchen—drama. Not that she could really fault them for that. There had been a murder last night, after all. You had to get your silver lining somewhere, and maybe the Santiagos’ silver lining was being caught up in celebrity relationship drama.

The agents returned their attention to her, and had Raven start her story at the beginning.

Their marriage wasn’t public knowledge, as Finn preferred to stay out of the spotlight. Raven hadn’t thought too much of it, until she found the reservation for this trip on one of her credit cards. She’d thought that maybe he was planning a surprise trip at first, but something about it was off. 

Finn didn’t do surprises. 

He hated being surprised, and assumed everyone else did, too. She’d known him since they were kids, and she’d always known exactly what would be inside every present before she’d even been given it to unwrap.

So she’d called the inn. The reservation was under Finn Collins and Roma Peters. They usually tended to use a fake name for her when they booked vacations, but Roma wasn’t one of them.

She’d done more digging, and it hadn’t been at all hard to find out that Roma Peters was a woman Finn worked with.

After that, she’d been unstoppable. She’d gone back through their finances for years, called numbers and stalked social media and done everything she could.

In three days, she’d found sixty four women that her husband had almost definitely cheated on her with in the last five years alone.

That was just over a week ago, when her life came crashing down around her.

She was supposed to be in Greece right now, starting the filming of a new movie, but she’d put them off a few days.

After she’d found the names, she’d gotten drunk and sent an email from a burner account alerting Roma to the existence of Finn’s wife.

Then she’d waited a few days and called the inn. Finn’s reservation hadn’t been cancelled, so she assumed that Roma had already known about her and hadn’t cared. (But Roma hadn’t been here with Finn, someone named Bree was, so maybe Roma _hadn’t_ already known after all.)

So she phoned the inn again from a different number, and booked a room for Becca Franko.

“His face when he saw me here was priceless,” she said, shaking her head. “Surprise, asshole. We’re getting a divorce.”

“Josie said you were arguing with him last night?” Miller pressed. “When was that?”

Raven shook her head. “Not long after dinner,” she said. “He was trying to convince me that this wasn’t what it obviously was, and that it was also somehow my fault.”

“Dick,” Josie muttered, and Jaha shushed her.

“What happened?” he asked, and Raven shrugged.

“Not much,” she said. “We argued, and then Bree called him and he went upstairs. I was sure he was going to come up to my room at some point to keep arguing, but he never did. Or, if he did, I slept through it. My room’s in the attic, though, and the stairs are pretty creaky, so I think I would have heard him if he tried.”

“So you’re saying you were in your room all night?” Miller asked. “Can anyone attest to that?”

Raven shook her head. “Yeah, I was,” she said. “And I was alone. But, like I said, the stairs are pretty creaky. If I’d come down, someone in one of the rooms next to them would have heard.”

**11:53am**

Bree was feeling so many things right now. She was fuming. She was mortified. She was devastated.

And she was relieved that she’d at least found out now, when she’d only been with Finn for a couple of months. She wasn’t in love with him, and she knew this was something that could have been way worse if she was in deeper.

Not that it wasn’t completely terrible anyway.

She slammed the door to her room open, and started throwing her things back into her suitcase. The doors were still blocked with snow, but she was getting out of here as soon as she could.

“Bree, wait—”

“No!” She spun around on Finn, glaring at him. “You have a fucking _wife_ , Finn. You don’t get to say anything else about anything!”

He closed the door, too slowly, too calmly. “Bree, just listen to me.”

“No,” she hissed, pointing at him with the shoe that was in her hands. “ _You_ listen to _me_. We are _done_ , okay? Being the other woman was _not_ what I signed up for. Every person we know will know what scum you are. Good luck finding someone else to fuck you.”

Finn shook his head, his hands raised like she was a fucking wild animal.

“Just let me explain,” he said. “Bree, I love you. I—”

She laughed harshly, shaking her head. “Bullshit,” she declared, and pointed at the door. “Get out of my fucking room.”

“Bree—”

“Out!” she screamed. “Get the fuck out!”

She could hear doors down the hall opening as she stood in a stare down with Finn. He was giving her that stupid puppy dog face, the one that had worked so many times before, the one that she now saw for the manipulative, snively shit that it was.

“Get out of my room, Finn,” she repeated, her voice low, threatening. “Unless you want there to be a second murder on our trip.”

Finn stared at her another moment before stalking out of the room. Bree didn’t know where he was going, and she didn’t care.

She crossed the room to the door and slammed it shut.

**12:19pm**

Wells dragged a hand over his face, running over their case notes in his head.

The notes were a whole lot of shit for what should have been an easy case.

Sometime during the night, Vera Kane was stabbed in the stomach. She then either fell or was pushed down the stairs, leaving a trail of blood in her wake, until she was impaled on the antlers of a large reindeer decoration near the door. While they couldn’t accurately determine cause of death just by looking, Wells was willing to bet it was neither of those things, as Vera’s throat was also slit. The blood patterns suggested it was done after she was impaled.

Other than that, his graceful fall into the blood that morning and obscured any footprints that might have been there. Neither he nor Nathan had brought any forensics kits with them for the night—and why would they?—so they were going to have to wait for the snow to clear enough for a forensics team to arrive.

It should have been an open and shut case. There were thirteen people in this inn, only thirteen possible suspects.

Eleven if they discounted himself and Nathan, which he could do as he knew for a fact that neither of them had left their bed all night.

So that left eleven people.

Eleven suspects, trapped in an inn.

And yet.

No one saw anything. No one heard anything.

All anyone wanted to talk about was gossip and hearsay.

They’d learned that Becca Franko was actually Raven Reyes. They’d learned about her marital problems with Finn Collins and his affair with Bree Austin.

Everyone had their speculations on who did it. Most of those speculations pointed to one of the three in the love triangle: Finn Collins, wanting to kill his wife before his mistress found out; Raven Reyes, mistiming her revenge; or Bree Austin, trying to kill either her cheating boyfriend or the woman he might choose over her.

Or maybe he was just listening to Josephine Santiago’s speculating too much.

The other theory was Dante Wallace. Josie had claimed that the butler doing it was too cliché, and, while Wells did agree with that in the literary sense, real life didn’t care if something was cliché.

So they’d interviewed Dante, who had apparently taken his sleeping pills the night before and been out for the entire night. That, coupled with the convincing job he was doing at acting devastated at Vera’s death ruled him out as a suspect.

For now, at least. Once they could get a forensics team in, things might be different.

“He could have sleepwalked,” Josie suggested from where she was lounging on one of the beds. “Also a little cliché, but sometimes clichés make a good twist. Murdered the woman he loves and doesn’t even know it.”

“Can you stop that for one minute?” Wells asked, fingers pinching the bridge of his nose. “Or I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

Josie mimed zipping her lips, and Wells wondered whether that might last more than five minutes this time.

This was supposed to be a night to get away. This was supposed to be a night where he could just be with Nathan, a night where they could be together and not have to worry about any higher board finding out and forbidding them from being partners.

He loved Nathan, but if they couldn’t be out in the field together, he’d die from the worry every time Nathan walked out the door. It was a dilemma they’d been trying to figure out for years.

The door opened, and Nathan walked in, Finn Collins following behind. Wells watched Josie rearrange herself on the other bed into a position that looked less like they were hanging out at a sleepover, and Wells did the same, standing up and moving between the beds.

“I don’t know why you need to talk to me,” Finn said, huffing as he sat down in the chair they’d provided for him. “I obviously didn’t murder the lady, and I have more important things to be dealing with right now.”

Wells ignored him, turning on the recording app on his phone.

“Please state your name for the record,” he said, and Finn shot a glare at him.

“Finn Collins,” he complied.

“Good,” Wells said. “Where were you between the hours of 9pm last night and 8am this morning?”

Finn huffed. “I was in my bed with my girlfriend,” he said, rolling his eyes. “Now, if you would just let me get back to her—”

“We’re not finished,” Nathan interrupted, and, as Finn huffed again, Wells caught his boyfriend’s eye, and they mutually agreed to make this interview as long as they could.

And they did. They asked Finn as many questions as they could think of, and he gave the same generic answers as everyone else. He was in his room. Bree could attest to that. He never left. He didn’t hear anything. He didn’t know anything.

There was something about Finn, though, that seemed more off than the others they’d interviewed. His answers seemed a little more rushed, a little less sure. His eyes kept darting over to Josie where she was lounging on the bed whenever they asked him something before he’d answer it.

Maybe it was just because he’d been caught cheating. Neither his girlfriend nor his wife had seemed to be too pleased with him, so it was entirely possible that his sketchiness revolved around that issue. There was nothing concrete there, nothing that particularly stuck out, and it was just as likely that Finn was just a generally suspicious person. Had to be, to be playing as many women as Raven claimed he was.

Wells wasn’t about to rule him out as a suspect, though.

When they’d finally run out of things to stall Finn with, he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

“So,” Josie said, flipping back in her notebook. “I have some ideas.”

“No,” Wells said, shaking his head. “Out. Go get something to eat or something.”

Josie frowned. “But—”

“Out,” he repeated. “I need a break from you.”

Josie pouted for a moment, before rolling her eyes and vacating the room, and Wells sighed heavily.

Nathan laughed, locking the door before moving over to him.

“She’s a lot,” he said, which was definitely an understatement. “Maybe we’ll get a book dedication out of this.”

Wells rolled his eyes. “Sure,” he agreed, and stepped closer to Nathan. “Can we not talk about Josephine Santiago or the murder for a few minutes?”

Nathan grinned at him. “I don’t think there’s anything else _to_ talk about,” he countered, raising a brow. “Have we ever talked about anything other than Josephine Santiago? I don’t think—”

“Shut up,” Wells said, and then kissed him.

“Roger that,” Nathan murmured against his lips, his arms wrapping around him.

**12:28pm**

Clarke sat on her bed, chewing on her fingernail and scanning the notes on her phone.

They had a solid story. There was nothing for them to feel guilty about in regards to the murder, of course, but they were definitely guilty of a lot of things. Identity fraud, for one. A jewel heist, for another.

So they’d been hashing out their story. They still couldn’t get the stupid ring off her stupid finger. There were duffle bags of stolen jewels hidden in Finn and Bree’s room—Murphy had assured her they were well hidden, and she trusted him. They didn’t have any idea that matched their fake identities or their real ones.

So they had to nail their story. There couldn’t be any holes.

“Should we go over this again?” she asked Murphy, glancing up at him from her phone.

He was on the other side of the room, hunched over in a chair with his head in his hands, as far from her as he could be while still being in the same room.

It was still better than before they were forced into this room. He hadn’t so much as looked at her in months. She hated it, but she’d done it to herself. If Octavia hadn’t gotten the flu, if he hadn’t had to replace her on this heist, he still wouldn’t be talking to her.

“We don’t need to go over it again,” Murphy sighed, not raising his head. “We know the story. We’re so fucking in love that we didn’t notice a fucking murder. I got it.”

Clarke dropped her phone and sighed. “Murphy—”

“No,” he said, shaking his head and standing up. He still wasn’t looking at her. “No. We don’t need to talk about it anymore. We don’t need to talk about anything anymore. We just keep our heads low and we get out.”

Clarke pushed up on the bed. “Murphy,” she repeated, standing up. “Stop. I want to talk, okay? We should talk. We haven’t talked since—”

“Since what?” Murphy snapped, finally looking at her, and Clarke almost wished he wasn’t. “Since you decided we were over? I thought there was nothing to talk about there.”

The words he threw back in her face stung, but she deserved them.

“Murphy,” she pleaded, moving towards him. She stopped when he took a step back.

“No.” He shook his head. “No. You don’t get to do this.” He pushed past her, towards the door. “I’m going to make something for lunch. Gabriel’s a shit cook. Don’t fuck this up for us.”

The door slammed behind him, and Clarke sunk back onto the bed, digging her fingers into the blankets.

It would have been easier if she’d been here with Octavia. She was _supposed_ to be here with Octavia. Octavia would have been easier to be trapped in an enclosed space with. Octavia would have made light of the deep shit they were stuck in. Octavia’s presence wouldn’t have tortured her with everything she’d had to leave behind.

She wanted to go after him and tell him everything. She wanted to tell him why she’d done what she had, why she’d had to do it. She wanted to beg his forgiveness, wanted to beg him to give her another chance.

But, if she did that, she reminded herself, she’d be stuck.

She fingered the ring that was stuck on her finger, her ticket to almost everything she’d dreamed about, and took a deep breath.

Murphy would survive. He was smart and resilient and he’d survive.

They just had to make it out of this inn first.

**12:44pm**

Monty accepted the cup of hot chocolate Harper offered as she sunk down next to him, and they sipped their drinks in silence as they watched their son.

Jordan was at the window, watching the snow still fall. He was quieter this morning than he usually was, but other than that, Monty couldn’t see anything different in his son. It seemed more that Jordan was just overtired than that he’d discovered a murder victim that morning.

Monty, on the other hand, was exhausted from worrying—about Jordan, about who the murderer was—and just wanted to go home.

“We should skip my parents’,” he told Harper quietly. He loved his parents, but he also knew that Harper didn’t get along with them, his mom in particular. But they’d gone to her parents’ last Christmas, so it was his turn this year. But… “I don’t think I can sit through my dad trying to put a bright spin on murder.”

Harper snorted, and then covered her mouth with her hand, the laugh clearly not having been meant to escape.

“Your mom will definitely be convinced I was the one to murder her,” Harper agreed. “Either to scar Jordan or to get out of coming to her house.”

Monty sighed. He hated to admit it, but Harper had a point. His mom wasn’t overly fond of his wife.

“I’ll deal with her,” he told her, and Harper sighed, leaning down to rest her head on his shoulder.

They were almost finished their hot chocolate by the time Jordan moved away from the window, hopping onto the other bed and lying on his back, flying his stuffed rocket ship over his face.

“Was that lady dead?” he asked after a minute, not looking over at them.

Monty swallowed and deposited his empty mug on the bedside table.

“Yeah, bud,” he said slowly, softly. “She was.”

“Oh.” Jordan still didn’t look over, his rocket flying in dips and loops in the air over him. “Why?”

Monty opened his mouth and then closed it again, sharing a glance with Harper.

She stood up, crossing the little space between the beds to sit down next to Jordan.

“I don’t know,” she said, reaching out to touch his leg. “Someone here is a bad person, and they killed her.”

“Oh.”

Jordan was quiet again, aside from making sound effects for his rocket. Monty met Harper’s eye, wondering what his son was thinking, what they were supposed to say to him.

“Mom?” Jordan asked, and the redirected their attention to him. He’d dropped his stuffed rocket, was now looking at them instead of it.

“Yeah, buddy?” Harper asked.

“Are we gonna get killed, too?”

“No,” Harper said immediately, tugging Jordan up and into her arms. “No. We’re gonna be fine.”

“Nothing’s going to happen,” Monty agreed, moving to his son’s other side and wrapping an arm around both Jordan and Harper. “We’re just gonna stay in here and they’re gonna dig us out really soon and we can go home.”

Jordan let them hold him for a second, and then wiggled out of their hold flopping down on the bed.

“Are we still going to Grandma’s?” he asked, the topic change a little jarring.

Monty looked over at Harper. He knew he’d just said they didn’t have to go to his parents’, but if Jordan really wanted to, they hadn’t technically cancelled yet.

“Do you _want_ to still go to Grandma’s?” Monty asked, and Jordan shrugged, turning to drive the rocket ship up Monty’s arm. “Because we can if you want, or we can just go home and see Grandma and Grandpa later.”

“I miss the Delinquents,” Jordan said, referencing the residence of their living room aquarium. “I think they miss me too much for us to go to Grandma’s for Christmas.”

Jordan usually didn’t care much about the fish—in fact, he usually liked to complain about their existence in general, because his daily chore of feeding them was _so much work_ —so Monty determined that this was almost definitely not about the fish and was instead more likely about what Jordan had seen that morning.

He met Harper’s eye, communicating quietly that they were on the same wavelength.

“Well,” she said, offering Jordan a smile. “We can’t have the Delinquents missing you. Guess we’ll just have to go home.”

Jordan gave a half hearted “Woohoo” and then took his rocket to the window to show it the snow.

Monty sighed, closing his eyes and swallowing. They were going to have to figure out how to talk to Jordan about this when it inevitably came up again, but it seemed like they might have a bit of time for that. Enough time for the phones to come back on, and for him to call his mom and cancel. Enough time that they might have the help of the internet on how to deal with something like this.

They had time.

He just really, really hoped that not much more of that time would be spent in this damn inn.

**12:54pm**

Clarke’s foot was jittering. She didn’t know why she was so nervous. She knew the story she and Murphy were sticking to—it wasn’t even a story, really, not in terms of anything that had to do with the murder. The story was in case they were asked background information.

She knew what to say. She knew she was innocent in regards to the murder. Her mother had put them all through interrogations since they were old enough to learn what business they’d been born or brought into. She knew how to handle herself.

But there was something about this that was different.

She’d been questioned about things before, sure. But not like this. Not by a couple of agents who were definitely part of the investigation into the crime she actually _had_ committed. Not when she had so little information on what they knew and didn’t know. Not when she had no idea if they knew what she and Murphy looked like.

She managed to school her face like she was taught as she sat in a hard chair in their room, but she couldn’t stop her leg from bouncing. It would probably be fine.

The questions they asked weren’t that difficult to answer. Where was she last night? Who could confirm that? Did she hear anything or see anything suspicious? What were her and her husband’s reasons for being in the inn?

She answered the questions, and was pretty sure she answered them concretely enough to convince the agents. Her gaze kept getting drawn to Josephine Santiago, though, who was staring at Clarke with her head tilted, like she was trying to figure something out.

She told them that she was in bed last night, that she’d slept through the night and hadn’t heard or seen anything. Her husband, Mike, could confirm that, as he’d been with her the whole time. She hadn’t heard or seen anything suspicious through the night, but she relayed what Vera had told her about Dante and how creepy the man was. They asked her about Finn specifically, which wasn’t someone she had really been considering as the murderer, but he was cheating so who’s to say he wasn’t also a murderer?

Every minute she was in the room, she was terrified. She was terrified that a lightbulb would go off in one of the agents’ heads, a moment of _oh! Its you!_ She was terrified that they’d figure out who she was, that their story was fake, that she wasn’t here on her honeymoon with her husband, but that she was here on the run after a jewel heist with her ex.

She was terrified.

Somehow the thought of being caught and arrested, or of Murphy being caught and arrested, of being away from him in any capacity, somehow that scared her more than the fact that there was a murderer still on the loose in the inn.

She passed him in the hall when she was finally let out, swallowing heavily and nodding as their eyes found each other’s, and she felt like she was going to puke.

They had to make sure this entire thing didn’t go to shit.

She couldn’t lose him.

She couldn’t leave him.

**1:35pm**

Murphy dragged a hand across his face as he left his interrogation. He was exhausted. All he wanted was to curl up in bed and sleep until they could leave. He didn’t even care if they got the jewels back from Finn and Bree’s room before they left. Let them take the fall for it. Let Abby chew out his ass for it because this entire thing would obviously be his fault.

He didn’t fucking care.

He pushed open the door to his room, startling Clarke. She stood up from the bed wrapping her arms around her, and Murphy had to look away. It still hurt to look at her. It still hurt to be close to her. How much longer would it hurt?

“How’d it go?” Clarke asked, and as much as he didn’t want to talk to her, she was still _Clarke_. She was still the woman he’d loved for years, no matter how much he wished he didn’t. And they were still partners in this. This was their mission, this was still something that could fuck up both their lives, so he couldn’t just ignore her and crawl into bed, no matter how much he might want to.

“It went fine,” he said, and watched her breath a sigh of relief. “I think they bought it. Nothing seemed to go wrong. Someone radioed and said they thought we might be dug out by tonight, so we only have to keep this up for a few more hours.”

“Good,” Clarke said, and she sounded sincere but distracted. “That’s good.”

“Right,” Murphy agreed, frowning at her. “Did yours… _not_ go good?”

“No,” Clarke said, waving him off, her other hand picking at a stray thread on her sweater. She took a step towards him. “No, it went fine. Murphy, can we talk?”

Murphy sighed, knowing what she wanted to talk about.

It wasn’t like he _didn’t_ want to talk about it, either, not really. He wanted to know why she’d left him. He wanted her to tell him that she didn’t mean it, that she still loved him, that she wanted him.

But he was still fucking pissed and hurt and broken hearted, and he was stuck in a stupid inn with her, pretending to be her husband, and he just _couldn’t_ talk about it.

“No,” he said, sighing again as he reached up to drag a hand across his face. “No, we can’t talk, Clarke. Not if it’s about what I think you want to talk about.”

Clarke sighed, and he watched her take another step towards him. “Murphy—”

“Why?” he asked, unable to pretend he didn’t want to know anymore. He’d been pretending for _months_. She’d been ignoring him for _months_. “Why now?”

Clarke opened and closed her mouth a few times before she spoke.

“I’m scared, okay?” she said, quiet, like it was a confession she didn’t want to have to make. 

Even though she’d been the one to start this conversation, he still understood why she wouldn’t want to say it. They’d been trained since they were kids to not be afraid. Fear was death in this business. Fear meant mistakes. Fear meant getting caught. Fear meant disappearing.

There was a sad, lost look in her eyes that left a bad taste in Murphy’s mouth. He clenched his hands together to keep himself from reaching out. He couldn’t reach out, couldn’t break this resolve. It would only lead to getting broken again.

“I’m _scared_ ,” Clarke repeated, a little stronger, and Murphy swallowed. “I’m fucking terrified that we’re either gonna get murdered next or they’re gonna figure out it was us and we’re gonna go to jail and—”

“Clarke.” Murphy cut her off. He didn’t know what he was supposed to say next, he just needed her to stop voicing all the concerns he’d been ignoring.

“I’m scared,” Clarke said again, stepping closer and shaking her head, her eyes shining. “I’m scared I’m never going to get to see you again, okay? And I thought—I thought I’d be able to do that, I thought I’d be able to live with that, but I can’t.”

Murphy closed his eyes. He couldn’t listen to this. He couldn’t listen to Clarke lament over thinking she might lose him, when she’d already forced him to lose her.

“Clarke,” he said, still not knowing where he was going after that. What was he supposed to say? Was he supposed to tell her it was all going to be okay? Because it wasn’t. Even if everything worked out and they got out of here alive and free and fine, it wasn’t going to be okay. _They_ weren’t going to be okay.

“Murphy.” 

There was something in her voice that made him open his eyes again, that made him look at her. She was already looking at him, something desperate in her eyes.

“Murphy,” she repeated, the same desperation seeping into her voice. “I love you.”

With three simple words, the dam he’d built up around what had happened months ago crashed down.

“You love me?” he repeated, hissing out the words, filling them with all the venom he could never force himself to really, truly feel about her. “You _left_ me.”

Clarke’s eyes widened and she took a step backwards, and Murphy almost felt bad, the little bit of him that wasn’t caught up in finally confronting _this_ , finally confronting everything.

“Murphy—”

“No, Clarke,” he snapped, shaking his head. “No. You _broke_ me, you know that right? You ripped out my heart out of nowhere and stomped on it.

“John,” Clarke tried again. “I didn’t—Let me explain. _Please_. I wanted—”

“ _You_ wanted?” Murphy repeated, letting out a humourless laugh. “You wanted what?” Clarke, I wanted to marry you! We’d talked about our _future_! I was down on my fucking _knee_ , and suddenly you don’t want any of that anymore? And now you want to talk about what you wanted?” Murphy laughed again, throwing his arms wide. The part of him that wasn’t caught up in this wondered if he was having some sort of mental breakdown. “Well, I’m listening, Clarke! What _did_ you want?”

“I wanted to leave!”

Clarke didn’t yell it—they were both just aware enough of the fact that having an argument wouldn’t follow their newlyweds on their honeymoon cover—but the quiet desperation in her words was almost louder, ringing in his ears.

“What?” he asked, quietly, all the fight suddenly leaving him. Her words didn’t make any sense. She wanted to leave? Leave _what_? Go _where_?

Clarke sighed, reaching up to drag a hand through her hair.

“I wanted out of the business, Murphy,” she said, almost defeatedly. “I wanted to live a normal life where I didn’t have to look over my shoulder every fucking minute. I wanted out. I was planning to leave after this heist, run off with some of the loot.” She shook her head. “I have buyers set up and everything. I was going to sell them, get some money, and start over.”

Murphy felt like his entire world had been turned upside down. How had he not noticed that Clarke wanted out? He knew she complained about Abby, about the direction the business was heading, about how they were going on more dangerous heists more often. She complained, but so did he. So did everyone.

He didn’t know she wanted to _leave_.

“You should have told me,” he whispered, and she shook her head.

“I _couldn’t_ ,” she countered sadly. “Murphy, you love this life. You’ve loved it since my mom brought you into it. I couldn’t ask you to leave.”

“No.” He was shaking his own head almost from the moment she started talking. He stepped closer to her, closing the distance between them. “I don’t love this life, Clarke. Sure, I’m good at it. You’re good at it, too. But this life isn’t what I love.” 

He reached her then, taking her hands in his. She was watching him almost cautiously, a little bit of hope sliding into her eyes. He brushed his fingers over her skin, revelling in the feel of holding her again. That was the one good thing about being stuck in this inn, one thing he hadn’t let himself enjoy yet. He’d gotten to hold her at dinner last night, he’d gotten to kiss her and touch her and it almost felt like it had never happened, like they had never ended. 

In another life, one where they didn’t live on the wrong side of the law, one where they were better at communicating, in another life this could have been real. She would have said yes when he’d asked her to marry him. They would have really been newlyweds on their honeymoon somewhere. Preferably without the murder.

“When your mom found me, I didn’t have anyone,” he said, eyes searching her face. “I would have loved any business I was brought into, because it’s not the business I love. I love having a family. I love having people who have my back. I love not being alone. I love—” He cut himself off, swallowing heavily as he steeled himself to say something he hadn’t said since she’d broken his heart. “I love _you_ , Clarke.”

“Murphy,” Clarke whispered, and he dropped one of her hands, reaching up to brush a tear off her face. He rested the hand on her cheek after, his heart soaring as she leaned into his touch.

An idea struck him, and he grasped onto it, suddenly desperate for a life he’d thought he’d never get.

“You said you love me, Clarke,” he whispered, inching even closer and searching her eyes. “Do you mean it?”

Clarke’s lips twitched, wanting to spread into a smile but not yet willing to believe this was actually happening.

“Of course I do,” she said, her hand rising to brush up and over his chest, gripping his arm. “Of course I love you. I’ve always loved you, and I always will.”

Murphy took a shaky breath. “Then run away with me.”

Clarke blinked at him, her grip on his arm tightening. “What?”

He grinned at her, moving his hand from her face to dig into her hair. “We leave the rest of the loot where it is,” he said, the plan forming as he spoke. “We get this ring off your finger, and we sell it. It’ll be more than enough for us to build a life.” He laughed, a little bit desperate, a little bit crazy, and he squeezed her hand he was still holding. “We can have a _life_ , Clarke. You and me.”

Clarke laughed, breathless, and the smile that had been trying to blossom on her face finally bloomed.

“Are you sure?” she whispered, and Murphy couldn’t take it anymore.

He closed what space was left between them, tugging her closer and pressing their lips together.

 _Fuck_ , he’d missed kissing her. He missed _her_. He missed talking to her and laughing with her. He missed kissing her and holding her and being with her. He missed _her_.

He had to breathe, eventually, and pulled back enough to press their foreheads together. He was clinging to her, never wanted to let her go, and she was clinging back just as hard.

“Of course I’m fucking sure, Clarke,” he whispered, breathing heavily. He leaned in to kiss her again, short and sweet, and then pulled back, scanning her face. “Marry me, Clarke Griffin. Tell me you’ll spend the rest of your life with me.”

Clarke grinned at him, wide and bright and beautiful. “Yes,” she whispered, giggling. “God, yes, Murphy.”

And then he was laughing with her and they were kissing again, tumbling down onto their bed, and suddenly everything that had been so wrong with the world was right again.

**1:46pm**

Josie chewed on the top of her pencil as she watched her husband give his statement. He was so hot like this, with his flannel and his hands and his face. She couldn’t wait until they got out of here and she could rip his clothes off.

They had other stops on their inn tour, but Josie was sure she had enough material from this inn alone for her next book. Maybe she’d suggest skipping the rest of the inn tour and heading somewhere warm. She could really go for a good beach right now. Margaritas and ocean and sun and sand and no layers covering up her husband, who really shouldn’t ever be covered up in the first place.

She forced herself to focus, to take in the details of the agents and her husband.

“I heard creaking,” Gabriel said, and Josie watched the agents tense up. “It woke me up in the middle of the night. Maybe 2am? It sounded like stairs.”

Jaha turned back towards Josie. “You didn’t say anything about creaking.”

Josie shrugged. “I’m a heavy sleeper.”

“Which stairs?” Miller pressed Gabriel.

“The ones to the attic, I think,” Gabriel said. He dug a hand into his hair, the movement so sexy that Josie started getting distracted again. “Our room is right beside them, and it came from the other side of that wall. It sounded like someone started to go up the stairs and then decided not to and came back down.”

“Did you hear anything else?” Jaha asked, and Gabriel shrugged.

“Not that I can remember,” he said. “Maybe some whispers, but Josie also talks in her sleep, so that could have just been her. And then I fell back to sleep.”

“Anything else you remember?” Miller asked, and Gabriel shook his head. He turned to Jaha, who nodded. “Alright. Thank you. You can both leave.”

Josie considered protesting, but Jaha wasn’t exactly her biggest fan and she needed their trust to be kept in the loop. Plus, there were definitely things she wanted to do with her husband right now that she couldn’t do in the agents’ room.

So she hopped up from the bed, collected her notes, and followed her husband into the hallway.

“We searching for clues?” Gabriel asked once the door had shut behind them, voice teasing as he leaned against her.

Josie shook her head, turning into him and wrapping her arms around his neck.

“Only if we just search our room,” she told him, grinning as she leaned closer, her lips brushing his jaw. “And only if those clues are in our pants.”

Gabriel laughed and kissed her hard, and then they were stumbling down the hall to their room.

**4:49pm**

Jaha and Miller wouldn’t let her back into their room—she had half a mind to think they were too busy doing it and didn’t want her to interrupt, which would definitely be a more valid excuse than the other, less fun one in which Jaha had convinced Miller to stop letting her join their investigation—so she was taking her clue hunting to the rest of her house.

Anywhere leading to the lobby was blocked off, and Josie wasn’t dumb enough to think she could check out the body without it being highly suspicious, so she ignored that in favour of snooping through the rest of the house. Jaha and Miller had done a bit of snooping themselves, but there was only so much they could investigate on their own. The real investigation would come once someone dug them out, and Josie was planning to be on a beach somewhere by then, with her man and her drinks, reading about the conclusions of the case in the news.

The servants’ hallways were a very nice touch on the house. Definitely a good way for killers to sneak around without being noticed. Something to keep in mind for future endeavors.

She opened a panel in the wall and stepped into what seemed to be a sitting room. Josie had poked around in it the night before, until Vera had ushered her out, and it seemed as good a place as any for her to start.

She had her top theory right now. The break she’d decided to take so she could spend some quality time with Gabriel had been good for clearing her mind. Her theory was pretty solid, and she was ready to pitch it to the agents as soon as they’d let her back into their talks, but it wouldn’t hurt to find more evidence to strengthen it further.

Her eyes were drawn to the pictures lining the mantel over the fireplace, and she crossed the room to look at them.

Most were pictures of people she assumed to be Vera’s family. Old ones with her late husband, others with her children when they were young. Others were of her children’s own families: professional portraits, school photos, wedding pictures.

There was one wedding photo in particular that caught her eyes, a wide shot of the whole bridal party. She picked it up, taking a closer look at the groomsmen, the corner of her mouth pulling upwards as her suspicions were confirmed.

Oh. Oh, yes. This was perfect.

**5:02pm**

Miller stared at the pages scattered on one of the beds, wondering whether any of their scribbled notes were making any sense. He and Wells had long since determined that they wouldn’t be figuring anything concrete out until they could get forensics in here, but that wasn’t stopping them from trying to piece things together anyway.

Someone had radioed not long ago saying they were probably going to be dug out in a few hours. They could wait for backup to arrive first, but he and Wells should probably start searching rooms soon, looking for any sort of evidence. They probably should have done it early, definitely _would_ have started it earlier if they’d had more people, but there was only so much you could do with two agents.

“We should probably start searching rooms,” he said, sighing. They weren’t even homicide. They were supposed to be investigating a jewelry heist for fucks sake.

Arms wrapped around him from behind, and he leaned back into Wells.

“We could wait a couple more minutes,” his boyfriend suggested, and Miller felt a smile spread across his face.

He turned around and kissed Wells, definitely completely happy to take a few minutes off. He tugged him closer, humming against his lips, and—

—and someone started pounding on the door.

“For fucks sake,” Wells muttered, pulling away. He moved towards the door, pulling it open, and sighed loudly. “What do you want, Josie?”

Miller moved behind him, eyeing the writer. He loved J.A. Lightbourne Mysteries, he wasn’t about to lie about that, but the woman behind the books wasn’t exactly a joy to be around. Today had been nothing like Castle. Josie was, to put it plainly, annoying. She kept butting in when he was trying to have a moment with Wells. She had ideas, yes, but that didn’t mean they were all viable ideas for an actual crime. She liked the ideas that would make a good story.

Okay, so maybe it was _a little_ like Castle.

Josie pushed past them and into the room like she owned the inn.

“Look,” she said, brandishing a picture frame. “I’ve been doing some investigating of my own, and I’ve figured it out.”

Miller took the picture frame from her and frowned down at the picture inside, Wells peering over his shoulder. “Why are we looking at a wedding photo?”

“ _Because._ ” Josie dragged out the word, smirking as she dropped down onto one of the beds and crossed her legs, folding her hands together on top of her knees. “The bride is Vera Kane’s granddaughter Maya. I did some snooping, and found out that her husband’s name is Jasper Jordan. And if you look to the right of Jasper Jordan, I think you might recognize the, oh, third groomsman.”

Miller followed Josie’s directions, his eyes tracing over the groomsmen until he found—

“Holy shit,” he whispered, as Wells grabbed the frame from him for a closer look. “Is that…?”

“Finn Collins?” He didn’t have to look at Josie to know she was smirking. It seeped into her voice. “It very much is.” She stood up, rounding them to take the picture back, brushing her fingers over it. “Now, I’ve done some digging. The groomsman closest to Jasper is his brother, and the next one over is Maya’s brother, which means that Finn must be one of Jasper’s best friends to have made it into the bridal party, right?”

Miller had no idea what went into planning a wedding, and he glanced over at Wells, who looked just as lost.

“Why does that matter?” Wells asked, and Josephine shrugged, dropping the picture onto the bed.

“I’m just saying that it’s possible that Finn came here with ulterior motives,” she said. “Maybe everyone’s wrong. Maybe Finn _hadn’t_ been trying to kill Raven or Bree. Maybe he’d already come here with a target in mind because his BFF Jasper asked him to.”

Miller crossed his arms, cocking his head. “So you think that Jasper got his friend to come here and murder his wife’s grandma so he could, what?” he asked, piecing Josie’s latest conceived story together. “Get their inheritance earlier?”

“I’m not the detective here,” Josie said, shrugging like she hadn’t been playing detective all day. “But I’m just saying. Seems a little fishy that he wouldn’t mention knowing Vera.”

It did seem a little fishy, Miller had to agree, and a lot more plausible than any of Josie or the other guests’ previous theories.

Dante killing Vera because of unrequited love didn’t seem to fit with the distraught Dante they’d interviewed.

Finn or Raven or Bree trying to kill each other and accidentally killing Vera instead was a bit too big of a coincidence.

The Greens didn’t seem to be the type to kill someone and then let their son discover the body.

Josie and Gabriel hadn’t said or done anything particularly suspicious, nor had Mike and Diana.

But Finn, coming to the inn under the guise of a vacation with his girlfriend, only to really be planning to kill Vera so his friend could inherit whatever fortunes were left to his wife.

Well. That was a viable motive if he’d ever heard one.

He met Wells’ eye, and his partner seemed to have come to the same conclusion, and they were headed out the door, snapping on disposable gloves with Josie on their heels.

Wells banged on Finn and Bree’s door, and Miller stood by beside him.

“I told you to fucking leave me alone, Finn!” Bree shrieked as she opened the door. Then she froze, blinking at them. “Oh. Can I help you with something?”

“We need to search your room,” Miller said, and Bree frowned at him. “Where is Finn?”

“Hell if I know,” Bree said. “I never want to see his face again. Why do you need to search my room?”

Wells nodded at him, and then left to search for Finn.

“We have probably reason to suspect that there is a murder weapon hidden in your room,” Miller told Bree, and watched as she paled.

Bree stepped aside to let him in, and the other guests had already started to gather in the hall. He could hear Josie not-so-quietly whispering their working theory, but he ignored her as he stepped into Finn and Bree’s room.

There were plenty of things thrown around, which made sense given Bree’s reaction to them thinking Finn might be inside, so Miller got started sorting through the mess, trying to figure out where someone might stash a bloody knife. The meat cleaver had been missing from the kitchen, and Miller would be willing to bet it was hidden here somewhere.

He’d torn apart half the room by the time Wells returned, dragging a protesting Finn behind him.

“I’m telling you, I didn’t fucking do anything!” he yelled, struggling against Wells’ hold. Wells shoved him down into a seat, and Finn complied, scowling at them. “You’re not going to find anything.

The search continued. The guests whispered and gossiped outside the door, spurred on by Josie.

Miller found the loose floorboard by accident, tripping over it. He knelt down beside it and looked over at Finn, watching him pale.

He turned back to the floorboard, peeling it up and looking inside. He reached in and pulled out a shirt first. It was a plain cotton t-shirt, one someone might wear to bed, and when Miller twisted it, the light illuminated the blood stains. Next from the hole came blood splattered running shoes. Finally, wrapped in a pair of bloody boxer shorts, he found a meat cleaver, still soaked in dried, red blood.

“Look what I found,” Wells said, walking over, and Miller’s head snapped up from his own discovery, wondering what his partner could have found that was possibly more shocking. Wells stopped as he rounded the bed, staring down at Miller’s floorboard haul. “Holy shit.”

“Mmmhmm,” Miller agreed, standing up. “What did you find?”

Wells dropped the duffle bag on the floor, pulling open the top to reveal a stash of jewels.

“Well, holy shit,” Miller said, and then there was a scuffle at the door, and they were taking off after Finn.

“I didn’t do it,” Finn insisted when they caught him easily, blocked by the crowd at the door to the room. “I didn’t fucking kill her.”

“Really?” Miller asked, holding his arms behind him as Wells went back to their room for the cuffs. “Then why is there a bloody knife wrapped in your underwear and hidden under your floor?”

“I don’t fucking know,” Finn snapped. “I was there, okay? I was there, but I didn’t fucking kill her.”

Miller froze, turning Finn around. “You were there?” he repeated, and Finn nodded, face desperate.

“I was,” he said. “And I hid my stuff because it was bloody and that would look suspicious, so I hid it, but I didn’t have the fucking knife.”

“Then who killed her?” Miller asked, meeting Wells’ eyes as he rounded Finn to cuff him.

“They did.” Finn nodded towards the Santiagos, and Josie let out a dramatic gasp, clutching her chest. “They were out with the fucking knife, and then Vera was there and they just—they killed her!”

“That’s not true,” Josie said, shaking her head. “That’s _not_ true. We never left our room!”

“He’s lying,” Gabriel agreed, wrapping an arm around his wife. “He got caught, and now he’s trying to cover his tracks.”

Miller met Wells’ eye again.

“Everyone back in your rooms,” Wells said, raising his voice. “I’ll be coming around in a bit to find someone to help make dinner, which we will be delivering to your rooms. No one leaves them until we leave this inn, understand?”

**10:39pm**

Almost twenty one hours after Vera Kane was murdered, her guests checked out of her inn, wading through the snow to the backs of police cars. 

They were being escorted to a different hotel where they’d be kept under watch until forensics could properly study the crime scene and search the inn. The guests would be questioned again, their stories compared and refined, and their contact information would be taken. Once that was done and forensics had cleared them from being at the scene of the crime at the time of the murder, they would be free to continue on to wherever they were headed.

The Green family, first to arrive and first to leave, would be heading back home once forensics cleared them. Monty would call his mom and apologize for not being able to make it, and she would act sympathetic, only to start in on unsubtle insinuations that Harper was at fault for them missing Christmas. Jordan would have nightmares for a few months, but would ultimately be fine. He would be, after all, the only third grader in his entire class who got to see a dead body over Christmas break.

Finn Collins and Bree Austin were escorted out of the inn in handcuffs, tucked into the back of their own private cars. Both Finn and Bree claimed they’d never seen the diamonds before, but they matched the description and the jewels had been found in their room. Bree also claimed to know nothing of the murder, which the agents were more inclined to believe. Finn’s DNA would later be found on murder weapon and on Vera herself, and would go to prison for murder. No ties would be made to a plot with either Jasper or Maya for their inheritance, so they would still receive what amounted to a great deal of money. No solid evidence would place Finn or Bree in the jewel heist, either, so Bree would be released and charges would be dropped on that account for them both.

Raven Reyes left the inn and found her social media blowing up. Somehow word had already gotten out of her involvement in this murder investigation. She would ride through the media storm like the professional she was, and come out the other side unscathed. She would divorce her husband, and go on to live a happy, successful life.

Gabriel and Josephine Santiago left the inn under strict police supervision. While the agents were unable to find any evidence of their involvement in the murder, they wouldn’t be released until further investigation continued to support that claim. However, on their ride in the back of their police cruiser to the hotel, Josie would receive a phone call from her father. Her mother had had a heart attack, and it wasn’t looking good. It would be decided that they would be released after their questioning at the hotel that they would be released to fly home to visit her mother, with the condition that they wear ankle monitors and answer any phone calls from the agents assigned to the case. So, in the early hours of December 24th, Josie and Gabriel boarded a plane.

Diana and Mike Clarke would exist for the next few weeks. They would cooperate with the investigations, both the jewel heist and the murder. They would answer any questions asked. They were professionals, of course, so no fingerprints or DNA would appear on the loot, and they would be eventually able to remove the stolen ring from Clarke Griffin’s finger and keep it hidden until they were cleared. Clarke Griffin and John Murphy would then go on to live a wonderful, normal life under new names. They would have the wedding they’d wanted, and they would raise their children in a lovely house where they learned to paint and climb trees and not how to hold up under interrogation.

Dante Wallace also left the inn that was his home, escorted into a police car. He would later move to the country to live with his son. His heart, however, had been broken by Vera’s death, and it would not be long before he followed her from this world, peacefully passing on in his sleep.

Agents Wells Jaha and Nathan Miller did not leave the inn that night. The murder case would be handed over to agents who actually worked in homicide, but they were the lead detectives for the moment. Their jewelry heist case also intersected, so they would be on and off the property of Skybox Inn several times in the following weeks. They would not long after reveal their relationship to HR, and finally be able to be together in public. They wouldn’t be allowed to be partners in the field anymore, but they would still be able to work their heist cases together, so long as other agents were present.

In the final hours of December 23rd, the Skybox Inn closed its doors to guests for good.

**DECEMBER 24**

**11:45am**

Josie dropped her purse on the floor by the table, rubbing at her now bare ankle.

“You are a saint,” she purred, accepting the cup of coffee he held out as he joined her.

Gabriel smiled at her, taking the seat across from her. “Think we got enough material for your novel?”

Josie hummed and sipped at her coffee. “I think so,” she said. “The Vera twist was great. I know we’d decided on Finn, but killing the cheating ex is so overdone.”

“And killing the old lady for inheritance isn’t?” Gabriel asked, relaxing in his chair and sipping at his own coffee.

“You know we were going to go with the love triangle gone wrong,” Josie reminded him. “Always a classic. But I found that picture, and the opportunity was too good.”

“Well, we have to work with what we’re given,” Gabriel agreed. He glanced around the airport. “I hope we’re going somewhere warm, though. I’m already done with the cold.”

Josie snorted. “Such a baby,” she teased, and then watched a man walk up to their table, eyeing the black purse he deposited on the table.

“I was on your flight,” he said, as Josie watched him expectantly. “I grabbed yours by mistake.”

She smiled at him. “Well, aren’t we just lucky you noticed in time?” she said, handing him her identical purse.

And then he was gone, taking their ankle bracelets and ID away. One problem gone.

They stood themselves, walking away from the table and down the walkway towards the planes.

“Where are we headed?” Gabriel wondered, wrapping an arm around her as Josie dug in her purse for their passports and plane tickets.

“Ooo,” she said, smoothing them out in her hands. “Looks like Xavier and Brooke Prime are spending Christmas in the Bahamas.”

“Mmm, really?” Xavier asked, mouthing along her jaw. She swatted him away, but let him pull her out of the main traffic to the side, let him tug her against him. “The Bahamas sound perfect, baby.”

“Oh, I know.”

Brooke deposited their passports back into her purse, reaching up and twining her arms around her husband’s neck. She studied his clean shaven face, wondering how long it had been since he’d had a beard. Who had he been then? Daniel? Atom? She couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter.

“Xavier sounds hot.” She tugged him closer against her, brushing her fingers over his face. “He probably has a beard.”

Xavier hummed, leaning in to brush their noses together. “You think so?”

“Mmmhmm.” Brooke closed the distance between their lips, kissing him, hot but brief. “You look so good with a beard, baby.”

“Well, then Xavier definitely has a beard,” he agreed, nipping at her lip, and Brooke giggled. “And you know what I heard?”

“What did you hear?” she asked, her mind wandering off to wonder where a good place in this airport would be for them to get some privacy.

“I heard,” Xavier said, whispering the words against her skin, “that Brooke is definitely a redhead.”

Brooke hummed as his fingers dug into her blonde hair, considering it. She _would_ look hot as a redhead, that was very true. And if he was growing a beard for her, it was really the least she could do.

“I think we can work that out,” she told her husband, and then she was being pressed against the wall, his lips capturing hers and stealing her breath.

_“We are now boarding flight 774 to the Bahamas at Gate C.”_

Xavier stole another quick kiss before Brooke was pushing him away and shaking her head, a mischievous smirk spreading across her face.

“We wouldn’t want to miss our flight.”

Once the heat wore off and Brooke had finished her latest book, once they were riding the funds of another best seller and the murder at Skybox Inn was a long forgotten news story, they could go anywhere they wanted in the world, be anyone they wanted.

But, for now, Brooke and Xavier Prime were off to the Bahamas to start their newest adventure, their newest lives. Sun, sand, ocean. All the drinks they could ask for. No reason at all to cover up with anything more than a bathing suit.

What more could a girl ask for?

**Author's Note:**

> Did y'all guess who the murderer was?
> 
> Tropes were:  
> Holiday: Any  
> Trope 1: Murder Mystery  
> Trope 2: Partners in Crime  
> Trope 3: Exes to Lovers  
> Trope 4: Snowed In
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this fic!!
> 
> Comments and Kudos give me life!
> 
> Come find me on Tumblr at probably-voldemort!
> 
> Stay safe, stay healthy, and have a great day!


End file.
